Why Straight Young Women Are Obsessed with These Gay Porn Stars

If you saw the CockyBoys in an airport, you'd think they were the next pop sensation. With swooping hair and skinny jeans on Michelangelo's David bodies, they travel in a pack. They even tell curious onlookers they're an up-and-coming boy band to avoid the subject of what they really do: gay porn.

The CockyBoys are a troupe of gay porn stars whose most dedicated fans are not gay men, but straight women in their 20s and 30s. Their female fans are just as obsessive as the screaming followers of Justin Bieber or One Direction: They message the group on social media, create elaborate fan art in their honor, and breathlessly mob them at live events. In a world where young women are shamed for their sexuality and porn consumption habits, the fandom surrounding the group is a reminder that women watching gay porn is not only perfectly healthy but also hardly niche.

"When these girls were young, boy bands were the 'in' thing. They saw the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, and that's what their brain decided to tell them was attractive and appealing," CockyBoy Tayte Hanson says. "I'm sure seeing young guys like the CockyBoys is a heightened version of what they've always wanted." He pauses. "Though we're also a lot of penis and ass and rough sex."

Started in 2010 by Jake Jaxson, 43, and his two partners in life and business, RJ Sebastian and Benny Morecock, the CockyBoys have more than 6,000 subscribers paying $30 a month for unlimited porn viewing. While roughly 30 percent of the subscribers are women, they make up at least 80 percent of the fans at CockyBoys' frequent meet-and-greets like next week's CockyCon 2016 in Chicago. With six to eight exclusive performers at any given time, the CockyBoys film at Jaxson's country house in upstate New York, aka the "Cocky Compound." They've also developed a sizable following on social media: the CockyBoys Twitter handle has 127,000 followers, and the performers each boast tens of thousands of Instagram followers.

Even if someone catches the guys holding hands in public, it works: Part of the appeal of bands like 1D in the internet age are the fan theories that the members have secret gay romances with one another. One Direction's female fans obsessively post GIFs of homoerotic glances between Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson and write "Larry Stylinson" fan fic. In embrace of their boy-band-like appeal, the CockyBoys just launched a new mockumentary (or "cockumentary," as Jaxson says) porn parody series called One Erection: The (un)Making of a Boy Band, which follows the faux boy band on their professional and sexual adventures.

More and more young straight women are turning to gay male porn in general. According to newly released Pornhub statistics, 18- to 24-year-old women are 24 percent more likely to watch gay male porn than other age groups. Gay male porn is the second most-viewed category by women on the site — "lesbian" is the first by a small margin — and women make up about 37 percent of Pornhub's gay male porn viewers.

It makes sense; straight porn relies on disembodied jackhammering and fake-seeming female orgasms. "If a man has an erection and he ejaculates, that shows he's having a good time," says Dr. Lucy Neville, a senior lecturer at Middlesex University London, who has surveyed and interviewed 500 women who like gay porn and other types of male-on-male erotica for a book she's writing on the topic. The women told her, "when I watch heterosexual porn, I can't be sure the woman is having an orgasm."

Not all gay porn is attractive to straight women. Mainstream gay porn often features hyper-masculine actors who share no greater intimacy than actors in mainstream straight porn. Jaxson, a former non-porn film producer, wanted to elevate the gay porn genre, so he decided to shoot movies that had actual storylines. "Porn has a utilitarian purpose," Jaxson says, "but I just felt like the consumer experience seemed so disposable. And when the product felt disposable, the performers felt and were seen as disposable. It was crass, and they were just holes."

These guys aren't "just holes" — they send each other lovey messages online and are friends in real life. Levi Karter, 22, a budding director, is the brooding one on-screen. Liam Riley, 22, a former competitive cheerleader, started doing gay porn at the behest of a crush and caused a minor scandal. Hanson, 26, a dancer and personal trainer, calls himself "the slut of the group." "I'm openly fluid, meaning I like men and I like women." So...? "Have I had sex with a female fan? The answer is yes." George Alvin, 22, who appears in a documentary series called Meet the Morecocks, recently retired as a CockyBoy known as Max Ryder and reinvented himself as an actor/stylist.

"Women definitely have a preference for gay porn where the men look like they are into each other, where they are smiling and laughing and touching each other, which is probably why the CockyBoys have been so successful [with women]," says Dr. Neville.

Kimberly, 27, a superfan who describes herself as "not just straight, but super straight," says she tried watching straight porn but was turned off by how much the women seemed to be putting on an act. "It's not even about gay porn or gay guys or anything," she says. "I don't feel like they are acting. It's more like watching a love story with sex."

The CockyBoys' fans live all over the world, and about a dozen women travel long distances to meet them. Sarah, 26, a straight U.K.-based waitress, has spent "a fair amount of money" — "I wouldn't like to add it up, to be honest" — following the CockyBoys to Chicago, New York, London, and Berlin for events. For her, they provide fantasy without pressure. "I know that they're gay [which] makes them easier for me to talk to," Sarah says. "I'm not great at talking to guys I think are hot if they're straight."

Other superfans take their obsession further. Jess, a college student who wept at a recent meet-and-greet, makes emotional video montages of her favorite performers. Carolin, 37, a Germany-based fan, draws detailed pictures of the CockyBoys.

"If it wasn't for our women fans, I don't think we would have the level of exposure that we've had," Alvin says. "They are the ones that create the conversation and support the work." But what started as fangirls obsessing over the guys like an online slumber party has turned into real friendships. Riley says he has meaningful conversations with fans online after he posts statuses detailing breakups. He recently sent a warm message to a female fan on her last chemotherapy treatment.

@AnaisBlack33 congrats!! I'm so happy to hear the great news keeping you in my thoughts can't wait to hear more!!

"I feel like this is my second family," says Kimberly, who goes on un-CockyBoys-related vacations with other female fans she's met. "[The performers are like] my younger brothers or younger friends." Sarah agrees. "I've met some amazing people through it. Not just the boys, but we've met women we'd really consider friends."

Like in any family, though, there is drama. Not all performers leave on good terms, and fans have battled it out on social media over the resulting rifts. When former CockyBoys Jake Bass and Max Ryder left the group, many female fans were upset. Fans called the duo "Jax" because CockyBoys scenes often portrayed them as a couple, but the reality was different, according to Alvin.

"A lot of the girl fans thought we were dating in real life, to the point where they would sometimes attack the actual people we were dating on social media," Alvin says. "The funny part was we hated each other but on camera had to play off the whole 'Jax' [thing]." They've since moved on to Alvin and Riley:

The idea of porn stars and their fans operating as a "family" isn't new. While the "porn mom," an older woman who follows a specific gay porn star, and offers gifts and emotional support, is still common, the younger female fans are replacing them, according to the guys. Dr. Neville says this is a good thing. "This sense of community that's been created has been incredibly liberating in terms of making [fans] feel they're not alone and they're not a pervert and that [preferring gay porn is] actually quite common and natural."

The CockyBoys don't expect to do this forever. Hanson is using his earnings (performers make $5,000 to $10,000 a month) to save up for a master's degree in dance or photography, and Karter is getting small directing gigs outside the porn world. Riley might audition for Big Brother. Alvin's fans have even followed him into his post-porn acting/styling career.

But for now, the guys are just a bunch of hot dudes chilling on a bucolic estate. After the photo shoot for this article, they crowded into the kitchen, shirtless, to snack on chocolate Goldfish. "The reality you have to deal with is they grow up," Jaxson sighed, watching the guys giggle at YouTube videos. "What they're into when they're 20 is not what they're into when they're 23."

*All of the performers' names in this story, unless otherwise noted, are porn names.

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